


I'll Meet you Halfway

by Black_Byakko



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: And crying the whole ass time, Cancer, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Guess who was up until 4 am writing this, Happy times sad time, Mariah and Carol were wives and you can pry that from my cold sleep deprived hands, Until WandaVision proves me wrong, fuck you disney, mentions of infinity war, technically cannon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29082948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Byakko/pseuds/Black_Byakko
Summary: Carol left, but she came back. She came back and she stayed. And one day she'll leave again, but she'll always come back. She's got a promise to keep.
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Monica Rambeau, Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau
Comments: 5
Kudos: 66





	I'll Meet you Halfway

It’d been twenty three years since she last saw this door. Twenty three years of faded marks on the wood from when Goose demanded that he be let in (“A cat did that to my front door?!” “A _Flerken_ cat. And he was hungry.” “And _I_ don’t care. Fix it.”) Twenty three years that felt like not even a day ago in this moment. She half expected to hear the light creaks of Lieutenant Trouble running down the stairs to swing open the door. The idea made the corners of her mouth twitch up slightly.

Still she didn’t knock.

Twenty three years of intergalactic travel, fighting armies, saving planets, overthrowing dictators, and having way too many guns pointed at her face, and it’s in this moment that Carol Danvers has felt the most anxiety than she’s ever felt in that time. She could fly through space at nearly the speed of light, and she still couldn’t knock on a fucking door. Maybe it was a mistake. Carol sighed and turned to leave.

“I know you weren’t just gonna up and leave without saying hello.”

Carol stiffened. The voice was...more weathered than she last remembered. The tone wasn’t angry, not even annoyed. Just flat. Almost dead. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to face her best friend. There were a couple of new wrinkles here and there, and while she definitely had aged and was a little thinner, it wasn’t much more than Fury. Which was to say, especially considering her...previous condition, she was aging at an absolutely unfair rate by normal people standards (“I’ve said it once and I’ll say it a thousand times Danvers. Black. Don’t. Crack.”). No, the biggest change that Carol could see about her...friend (“Okay, I have to know: just what are we anyway?” “...Would my answer change anything?” “No.” “Then what does it matter?”) was the eyes. In almost thirty years of knowing her, Carol had never seen Maria Rambeau with such sadness in her eyes.

...No. Not sad. Defeated. Devastated. Utterly broken. And she knew why. Maria studied her for a moment before gesturing down the hall.

“You coming in, or is this a QuikStop kind of visit?” she asked. Not waiting for an answer, Maria turned around and headed for the kitchen. Carol hesitantly entered after her, the sound of the door shutting behind her uncomfortably loud in the usually (in her memory anyway) noisy house. Hearing Maria making coffee down the hall, Carol took her time in looking around. There was some new furniture in the living room, a couple of plants here and there, and even a little pet food and water dish labeled ‘Goose’. There were also pictures lining the walls. Some were familiar, like their graduation from the Air Force Academy and a photo from a particularly fun night at _Panchos Bar_ (“You’re absolutely shit at singing you know that?” “But I won the karaoke contest.” “You were up against Jackson and Finigan. A tone deaf parrot could have beat those two.” “You wound me Rambeau.” “Pfft, I’m sure you’ll get over it.”). Some weren’t, full of people and places Carol had never been to or met. She ignored the stab of annoyance at the picture of a tall dark man with his arm around Maria’s waist, pressing a kiss into her hair while she laughed. The annoyance itself only served to annoy Carol further. Carol never met Charlie, and Maria never liked to talk about him much, but still. There was no reason for her to still be jealous of a man that she’s never met, and had been dead for almost four decades. Especially if it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t have had Lieutenant Trouble.

“Reminiscing about the good ol’ days?” asked a deadpan voice beside her. The smell of coffee was comforting, and Carol nearly smirked when she realized how much she had missed the bitter stuff (“Seriously? You’re drinking it like _that_?” “What can I say, I like my coffee like I like my women.” “DANVERS!” “Haha, what? I meant strong! Plus, I've seen how much milk you put in yours, so I think I pretty much know how you like _your_ women Captain.” “Uh huh. Well let’s see how much you like your coffee after a night on the couch then _Captain_.” “Wait! No! I was just joking!”). Maria handed her the mug of the dark liquid. “I made it how you used to like it. Straight up. Black. No sugars.”

Carol gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

Mariah hummed and led the way into the living room. Carol saw a newish ugly mustard yellow Lazy-boy armchair in the corner and with a glance at Mariah, took a seat. Sinking into the cushions was comfortable, almost nostalgic. Mariah studied her from a comfortable looking couch, her feet curled up under her, a cup of coffee in her own hand. Almost white with three sugar cubes.

“You’d be surprised how hard it was to replace that chair. People actually had the common sense to leave ugly ass colors like that behind in the 80’s, so I had to get that custom ordered.”

“Huh, I was wondering about the distinct lack of stale coffee smells, slash, stains. I’m surprised that you replaced it.”

“Eh, room decor was never my forte. I didn’t want to think about how, quoting my mother, ‘the wrong kind of furniture might throw the whole room off’. If it works, it works in my opinion. Better to get a new one than move everything around.”

“Where was that attitude when I brought home that motorcycle statue from Pancho’s?”

“Recycled, just like that eyesore of scrap metal.”

“Recycled? Into what?”

“Patience. Because after I saw that trashy thing, dear lord had I needed some.”

“Haha, hey, come on. It wasn’t trashy.”

“Carol, you literally fished it from the dumpster.”

“Touche.”

Both of the women laughed, lightening the tension that had settled in the room for a moment. But then Maria’s eyes dulled again and Carol took a deep breath. They both knew why she was here.

“I’m sorry about Monica.”

Mariah looked deep into her untouched cup, her hand tightening slightly around it. After a minute or so she sighed. “So am I.”

“Were you going to tell me?”

“I don’t see how I could have.”

“I gave Nick-” Maria’s head snapped up. Her voice was cold and Carol internally cringed.

“You gave _Director Fury_ , a direct line of communication for emergencies. Not me," Maria scoffed, "Plus, it’s not like he’s around anymore to give it to me.”

“Maria...I...uh,” Maria put her coffee down on the end table next to her with a harder than necessary clang. Carol flinched.

“Why are you really here Danvers?”

“I...I told you. It’s because-”

“No, you didn’t tell me. What you _said_ was that you were sorry. Ha! 'Sorry', can you imagine that? After twenty three years you show up with nothing to say except that you’re 'sorry about Monica' as if she was just another...another...oh I don’t know, just another soldier gone MIA in combat. Like she wasn’t anything more than just another casualty of war to you. Tragic, yeah, but faceless. But hey who knows, maybe I shouldn’t be upset. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe that’s all she is to you now. Just another person. Just another tragedy.”

Maria’s voice was cold and hollow, though raising in volume. Carol’s own grip had tightened around her cup, consciously trying to avoid crushing it. She knew that this was coming. Maria needed it. She deserved it. Carol looked at the floor, focusing on keeping her voice steady.

“That’s not fair Maria.”

Maria released a harsh bark of laughter, and Carol felt her face heat up, whether in shame or in anger, she didn’t know. “Fair! Oh that's a good one Danvers. Fair, fair, fair, fair, fair, she says. As if it was fair to fuck off to who knows where, for the second time mind you, to somewhere across the galaxy playing superhero. _Fair_ she says, as if it was okay to leave her family behind again, with vague promises of coming back. Fair she says, as if getting her girls’ hopes up like that after they thought they had lost her the first time, wasn’t the absolute cruelest thing that anybody could do.”

“I was going to come back. I _was_. I just-”

“Just what Danvers?”

Carol ran her fingers through her hair. She really should consider cutting it. “Just-” she sighed, still looking at the floor. “There are so many planet’s out there, Maria. So, so many that needed help, that still need help. I just...I dunno, they needed me. Maybe I just thought-”

“Carol.” Carol stiffened again, feeling a slight crack from the mug in her fingers. “Carol Danvers, you look at me right now.” Carol looked up and met her more than friend’s eyes.

Maria was staring at her, her face hard, but unreadable, with eyes of stone. “Just thought that you’d have had more time?” Carol’s lips tightened, but said nothing. “Just thought that we’d always be here waiting? Carol, look at me, do you really think that I’ll be here much longer? I mean, it's not like I don't get it you know?" Maria gave a mirthless laugh, "You thought that people needed you so you helped, because that’s who you are, and what I always loved about you," she gave Carol with a hard stare. "But _they_ needed you? Well guess what hon? So did we.”

A familiar feeling crept up Carol’s spine as she looked at Maria, noticing for the first time, just how dark the circles under her eyes were, the wig that she was wearing that was just so slightly misplaced, as if set by shaking hands. Carol knew that feeling. It was the feeling you got when you knew there was someone about to die. They were going to die, and you couldn’t do anything about it but watch. She swallowed. “You look fine,” she said stubbornly.

Maria snorted. “I look like shit and you know it. You’re not in the habit of lying Danvers, so I suggest that you don’t start now. You don’t come out of cancer as soon as I have and come out, ‘looking fine’.”

Pancreatic cancer. Carol had been devastated when reading the file. A cancer with one of the lowest surviving rates, and even with Skrull or even other alien technology, the damage done was already too great. Maria had three years, maybe five at the most and she knew it...as did Maria, no matter what Earth’s doctor’s may have said. If Fury was still around she would have had screamed at him, demanding just why he hadn’t called her. She had told him to call her when there was an emergency, so _why hadn’t he told her_? She could have done something, anything! Carol felt herself begin to slip into that dark place. That place Vers would escape to when things would get too much on Hala.

“Carol.” A sad voice snapped her out of her spiral. “Carol, look at me.” Carol hadn’t realized that she was looking at the floor again, shards of ceramics scattered across the carpet, and coffee staining the Lazy-Boy. It was starting to look just like the old one she had loaded onto the truck with Mariah’s help from that junkyard in town. Maria had HATED it and did everything short of bleaching it (mainly because the fumes had made Carol dizzy) to make it habitable for their sparsely furnished living room. But Carol had wanted it, and they had made it work. They always had. She met Mariah’s eyes again, which this time were brighter, too bright then they should be, than they ever should have been allowed to be (“Mariah what’s wrong?” “It’s nothing hon.” “Was it Phillips again? Because Sargent or not, I’m not going to let him-” “Carol. It’s-it’s fine.” “......okay then. Do...do you want me to put Monica to bed?” “Please.”).

“Carol.” Maria said, her voice no longer hollow, but just so, so broken, “Let me tell you, ‘what’s not fair’. What’s not fair is having to tell your daughter that no, her Auntie can’t make her college graduation because Momma doesn’t know how to contact her. Unfair is being refused point blank by your boss, the one person who you know that had the only form of communication with your loved one, that no, he can't let you contact her. Because, I'm sorry, cancer or not, the work that she was doing was too important, and you being sick didn’t constitute a big enough emergency to pull her from it. Unfair is...is...” Maria put her feet on the floor, her face in her hands and let out a heart wrenching sob, “Unfair is coming to from one of the most terrifying procedures of your life, to a hospital in chaos, only for a doctor to tell you that...that…” another even harder sob, which felt as if it was ripped from Carol’s own chest, “that your baby, and that 50% of every other living thing on earth, was gone. Just...gone. With-with no way to-to get them back.” Her voice was quiet. "Or even to say goodbye."

Carol didn’t remember moving, but suddenly she was on the couch with Mariah in her arms, sobbing into her shoulder. Normally Maria would tease Carol about being ‘fun sized’ (“I’m NOT fun sized! You’re just a damn giant!”) but she was too busy wailing into Carol, her head slotting perfectly into the spot between her neck and shoulder. It was a testament to their relationship that Carol didn’t feel the urge to pull away. Even before the Vers incident, she wasn’t very good with criers. That was Maria’s department. But a little tears from a scraped knee, or a near meltdown at a Captain's open racism driving her near soulmate into her bunk in the dead of night? For her girls, she only knew to help, not pull away. And Carol felt the wetness on her cheeks as she remembered all the bandaged scraped knees, the silly christmas pictures, the playing astronaut, and the slip ups (“Mama Carol, look!” “Hehe, I’m looking Captain Trouble, I’m looking. But remember what your Mom said?” “...Auntie Carol?” “...Yeah kid. That’s my girl”). She squeezed Mariah tighter, both crying over everything they lost: their innocence, their time together, and...and…

“She’s gone Danvers.” Maria sobbed desperately. “Our baby’s gone.”

\---------------------------

That night, they sat together in bed, Mariah showing Carol albums full of pictures of their daughter, their backs resting against the headboard. Carol laughed.

“Is that-?”

“Yep, little shit swiped it not even a day after you left. She wore that old thing straight through her time at the Academy, said it was good luck.” Carol grinned at the picture of 13 year old Monica wearing her old Air Force jacket at a field trip to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum.

“Well was it?” Maria elbowed Carol with a grin.

“You damn well know that I don’t believe in luck. Our girl was smart, and the only lucky thing about her is how well she turned out despite...well, everything.”

“A captain in...S.W.O.R.D was it? She really did turn out pretty good in my opinon.”

“Oh speaking of!” Maria flipped to the back of the abum, pointing towards an classified photo of an older, geared up Monica Rambeau in the cockpit of one of S.W.O.R.D’s latest spaceships. The flight returned about 6 months before they found out about the cancer. “She designed the ship herself.”

“No way!” Carol exclaimed, “How far did it get?”

“Oh, just to the tail end of Venus and back.” Mariah said proudly.

“That’s incredible!”

“Yep. Was getting closer to her goal every time.”

Carol smiled, resting her head on Mariah’s shoulder. “She really was.” ("I'll be back before you know it." "Maybe I can fly up and meet you halfway." "Only if you learn to glow, like your Auntie Carol." "Or maybe I'll build a spaceship. You don't know.”)

\------------------------------------------

That night as they laid in bed, Carol apologized to Maria. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry that I didn’t come back.”

Maria sighed. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It partially was.” The sheets shifted, and Carol felt a warm hand cup her cheek.

“Carol, I don’t blame you. You’re a good person who's always stood up for others, even if it meant you’d get knocked right on your ass doing it.” The both chuckled. “I...I was hurt, and I was angry. But...I don’t blame you. Never have, never will. I’m just glad that you’re here now. Always continue doing the right thing Danvers. I’ll always be right behind you. We both will.”

They both ignored the tears sliding into Maria’s hand.  
“Do you want me to stay?”

“People need you Carol.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Carol...I-”

“Maria, if not I promise that I’ll leave first thing in the morning, but I need to know: _do you want me to stay_?”

“...Yes. But only if you mean it. Only if you want to.”

Carol leaned forward and kissed her. Again it was familiar, if a little different, but then again so were they. It felt like coming home. They kissed and they cried again, the most tears than either woman could ever remember crying in their lifetimes. Tears of happiness, of sadness, of loss, of reunion and everything in between. And that night they dreamed the same dream, the same memory. They dreamed of two women decades younger than the ones in their bed now, lying together in the wee hours of christmas morning, with their daughter sleeping peacefully between them.

\---------------------------

And Carol kept her word.

She stayed through every day, and came home every night. She worked together with S.H.E.I.L.D and with S.W.O.R.D to help stablized the world after the loss of almost half their population, calming down riots, and moving debris, and came home every night to watch something called 'Netflix' with her wife (they didn’t need the world to know, it was fine that they knew, though that sneaky fucking little racoon kept giving her these annoying fucking smirks). They’d cook, or vent, or do anything and everything that they wished they could have done together back when they were younger and the world was even less kind.

She stayed and held Maria as they both cried the night the Memorial of the Vanished was finished, and they read Mariah’s name alongside all those lost in the purge. They both had seen war, they knew what the headstone of a mass grave looked like. The next day Carol gave Maria her own communication device, so that no matter where Carol was, she could call her, and Carol would come running.

She stayed for every step, for every doctor's appointment, for every treatment, every day after those first couple of years before Maria’s diagnosis after she collapsed one night making dinner in pain: the pancreatic cancer had returned, and in full force. Carol had wanted to fly to a planet where she knew (or rather hoped) she could get a treatment, but Maria merely shook her head. She reminded Carol of her promise, and that they both knew that it was too far anyways - it’d be too late by the time Carol returned. Besides, there was work to be done. And so Carol stayed. She helped Maria get her affairs in order, picking her successor for S.W.O.R.D when she was gone, and finally drafting the Grounded Protocol.

Carol remembered laughing at the name, if not at the absurdity for its creation. Her wife, while pragmatic, was always the optimist, which was one of the many things that Carol loved about her. She didn’t have the heart to say that no, she didn’t believe that those lost in the Snap could come back. She couldn’t tell her that she firmly believed that their daughter was for all intents and purposes, dead. Despite her promise, Carol could see the flashes of doubt across Maria’s eyes when she left to do some work for S.H.I.E.L.D’s space stations, as if she thought she may find a stray space kitten (Goose it turned out, was still alive, a very fat, content, house Flerken) to save, which would lead to another rescue mission, another emergency, taking her farther and farther away from her wife until she was too far away, and couldn’t come back. This Grounded Protocol was Maria’s final hope, for their daughter and the world, and Carol wasn’t going to be the one to destroy it. Not again. So she helped create the protocol, and she helped keep Monica’s room clean. She even helped Stark and his wife the first few weeks after their daughter was born, seeing as being a new parent is nearly hell on earth, and Carol missed being able to hold a baby once again (though she would sooner pay allegiance to a Kree before admitting that, despite Stark’s many jokes about ‘Auntie Carol’ - which hurt more than he would ever know).

She stayed through everything, even in the private S.H.I.E.L.D hospital room where her wife was struggling to breathe, tubes shoved through her nostrils. She stayed while everyone else left to give them privacy and squeezed herself into the hospital bed next to her favorite person in this and any galaxy, and through choked tears she gave in to her wife’s request to sing her favorite song with her. That stupid song, _Never Knew Love Like This Before_ by Stephinie Mills, that won her a karaoke contest at a dumb little bar called Panchos against some former meathead army buddies which felt like a lifetime ago. Maria’s voice was strained and warbled, and the most beautiful thing that Carol had ever heard, second only to her saying “You’re singing is till shit hon,” to which all she could respond with was a laugh. She stayed, and she stayed to make a final promise. “When...when she comes back...you’ll come back. Right?” Carol had swallowed, and promised that of course. Of course she would. This time, she would come back.

She left the night after Maria Rambeau’s funeral. She left to go help other worlds who had suffered just like earth. She left to help, and to forget the very last of the ties that meant anything to her, that connected her to the planet of her birth. And as she left the atmosphere, all she left behind a final scream of pain and loss that echoed silently across the stars, and the rest of her tears as she raced through the stars to her next destination.

She left that night, but eventually, she did come back. Three years later she came back at a speed almost faster than light. She came back to the battle of battles, the final battle to end the war of all wars, and she came back in the nick of time. She helped defeat him and there was relief. She had kept her promise.

She had left, but she had returned. She kept her promise, and was nearly crying in relief for the first time in three years as she did so. She kept her promise, because how could she not? How could she not when in her loneliest hours in the deceptive emptiness amongst the stars she received the one call she was convinced that she would never receive? How could she ever break her word when she heard the words and the voice that she had been secretly begging for in her heart of hearts to hear once again?

So she rushed to return. She rushed to return after she put the receiver to her ear and heard a heartbreakingly familiar voice asking her one thing: “Mama, please come home.”

Lieutenant Trouble would never have to leave to try to meet her halfway again. She was always going to meet her right there.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all I did a couple of clean up edits, because like most writers, I was very sleep deprived writing this <3.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, and I hoped you enjoyed it! I'm thinking about writing a follow-up with a Monica-Carol reunion, but we'll see lol. Let me know what ya'll think!


End file.
